Magnetic Pages Article | 1993-07-22 | 23KB | 60 lines
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INFO Title : Zircon Amiga Mag 3
Publisher : Zircon"Authors : Gears, Hawk, Cosmic,
ZEX, Ezz, Shot.
Country : England
Conditions : Public Domain
Category : Magazine Released : 16th February 1993
Opinion : 71%
REQUIREMENTS
Drives : 1
Memory :
meg.
COMPATIBILITY
A500 wb 1.3.2 : YES
A600 wb 2.05 : YES"Multi-tasks : NO - runs from the
Workbench though.
Display : PAL& This is a bit different from the&usual scene magazine. It takes&elements from scene mags and mixes&them with what's found in normal paper&computer magazines. It has a real&computer news section for instance but&there's none catering for the Alive Is&Dead variety. Then there's also a&large miscellaneous section covering&lots of non-computer related subjects&as found in many scene mags. Some are&humorous and very English such as&"Uses For Lard" and "10 Ways To Kill A&Train Spotter" while there's other&more serious ones such as "The&Unemployed Society". It's also&liberally splattered with teenage&humour reflecting I guess the ages of&it's producers and the magazine's
likely readership.& The interface has been written in&AMOS Basic though you wouldn't know it&unless told. It's as responsive and&fast as any other magazine I've tried&with the added bonus of running from&and exiting back to the workbench,
which makes a change.& When started and after the three&nicely drawn screens of intros have&quickly flashed by, you are presented&with the magazine index and some music&playing. The music's starts OK but the&rest of it's not up to much so I&wanted to turn it off. But how?&There's a bank of icons along the&bottom of the screen but none of them&are music related. So, try Help from&the index. There's quite a few&features described here. You can not&only print the text but also save it&to disk and the pictures in the&magazine too. There's also a&colours-off option for TV viewers. But&there's no music-off option! You're&stuck with it I'm afraid. So it's a&case of me turning the monitor volume&right down and getting blamed for&saying in the next review I do of#something that it hasn't any sound.& The icons used along the bottom of&the screen have a rather flat look&about them. These give you the usual&print, index options and a goto-page&button. The page turning is not&standard though. This consists of up&and down arrows, but no left and right&ones. The arrows that are there are&for page turning. Missing are next and&previous article buttons. It's a case&of back to the index for each article.&It does make use of the right mouse&button though, which is rare. This&takes you to the first and last pages&of the articles, something a lot of
other magazines could do with.& In one article Hawk, the programmer&behind ZAM, bemoans the fact that&people didn't read the Help file in&previous issues. Well, neither should&they need to. It's just a magazine&after all and enough conventions for&disk magazines have developed now for&something resembling a standard to&have appeared. Woe betide anyone who&tries anything new - it will have to&be obviously better than the norm for&it to catch on. Moaning about the&users not reading the Help file is&also a bit much when pressing the Help&key doesn't do anything, let alone&bring up the Help page. The user's!always right, not the programmer.& Along with the Miscellaneous and&News sections mentioned above there's&also music reviews, computer hardware&reviews and reviews of commercial and&PD software. The editor, Gears, has&also bought Power Computing's Hand&Scanner and this has been put to good&use in the magazine with scanned&pictures appearing of an album cover&in the music review and in other&articles. Other mag editors take note.&This is a great way to enhance articles.
[3m! It does make use of the right$ mouse button though, which is rare.% This takes you to the first and last# pages of the articles, something
a lot of other magazines
could do with.
[23m& Amiga Shopper reviewed ZAM. Gears&decided to reply in an article titled&"Amiga Shopper Review of ZAM - The&Official Comment!". It begins such.&"Ian Wrigley, apart from being like&the gum he is named after (you spit it&out when you've finished chewing)..."&OK, a good joke to start with but then&the article descends rapidly into very&poorly aimed vitriol. This is so&ill-tempered I decided to check out&the review, having bought all the&Amiga Shoppers up until they started&sticking disks on them. And it's a&good review! I guess what annoyed him&so much was the marking of 6/10 while&the five other magazines reviewed all&got between 7 and 10/10. As someone&who gives marks for reviews I know how&hard it is to come up with a fair&number. I haven't seen ZAM 1 so I&can't comment on how accurate that&mark was but people shouldn't take&marks too seriously, but I know some
do.& Gears response is also a good$example of how to read things wrong.&He rants about the review mentioning&that ZAM 1 took three months to&produce as if it was a criticism. This&could have been taken in three ways I&guess. That the mags producers are a&bit slow, lazy or both, that they have&put a lot of time and effort into it&or just as a statement of fact. I bet&that Gears was the only one who read
it as a criticism.& Any criticism of ones work should&be examined minutely, not just&responded to at the emotional level.&It's just much too useful and if you&have any brains at all you'll be able&to sift out what's justified from&what's ill-informed. The sad part&about this is that Gears can write a&good article when he wants to. The&review of the Hand Scanner for example&is thorough and well written. I guess&the Amiga Shopper review was just one&number too short not to feel insulted.& On to happier articles. Hawk has&written eight AMOS programming&examples. These look very useful.&Yonks ago when I was learning Basic I&found short useful programs like this&of great help. The AMOS code is on the&disk while in the magazine the&programs are fully documented - white&for the code and purple prose for the&comments. Nearly every line of code
gets described. Nice.& Elsewhere in the magazine Hawk also&has a go at the publishing of game&cheats in magazines and especially at&Sega for publishing it's built in&cheats. His theory is that Sega does&it so that kids will finish the game&and be left with nothing else to play&and so will want to buy another&cartridge. Right on the button! Now&you know why that mega-graphical Sega&TV advert showing on NZ's screens at&present gives an infinite lives cheat&for a game. Are you listening parents?&I wonder if the programmers behind&such Sega games can look at themselves&in a mirror. How can the kids avoid&learning the cheats, and then resist&trying them, when they are thrown at&them on the TV every night? Great
marketing, lousy attitude.
[3m" How can the kids avoid learning$ the cheats, and then resist trying! them, when they are thrown at them on the TV every night?
[23m& Gears also presents an article&called Englo-Chinese giving examples&of text from badly written, Chinese&produced electrical manuals and&instructions. I know these can be fun&but disk magazines like ZAM, which&never seem to go anywhere near a&spelling checker, let alone a grammar&checker, are surely the last places to&start slagging off foreigners'&English. Get your own houses in order&first would seem to be a better&policy, though personally I like to&see how people really write, it gives&you a better idea of what they're
like.& There's also a great disclaimer in&the magazine. "Zircon will accept no&responsibility for anything bad&happening to anybody." That about&covers things. They also point out&that they're not just a PO Box. (Hmph&- I've gotta live somewhere you know.)&This is also something different about&ZAM. The real names of it's producers
are given.& Also on the disk are three&programs. Two shareware ones, a game,&"Dragon Tiles" and "BICS", the Boot&Intro Construction Set plus "Tower"&which appears to solve the Tower Of&Hanoi all by itself with nothing left&for the user to do but watch it. The&other two programs appear very&polished. None seem to have been made
by Zircon.& A good magazine for that huge&unwashed horde of games playing, AMOS&programming, Amiga Format loving (or&hating) teenagers that make up a&sizable chunk of the Amiga owning&public. I know Hawk has left Zircon so&where that leaves the magazine I don't&know but if it's still going I'd like&to see any future copies. There's a&place in the public domain for a disk
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